vgcdatabasefandomcom-20200213-history
Shirou Emiya
Shirou Emiya (衛宮 士郎, Emiya Shirō) is the main protagonist of Fate/stay night who acts the Master of Saber during the Fifth Holy Grail War. History Ten years before the start of Fate/stay night, Shirou was an ordinary boy living with his parents in Shinto. The great fire caused by the wish of Kotomine at the end of the Fourth Holy Grail War killed both his parents and left him mortally wounded within the blaze. He was rescued by Kiritsugu Emiya, who was dejected after the events of the war and, wishing to atone for his actions, saved Shirou's life by embedding Avalon in his body. He then later asked the recovering Shirou if he would like to become his adopted son, fully disclosing his identity as a magus. Shirou agreed and spent the next two years persistently asking Kiritsugu to teach him Magecraft. Kiritsugu eventually complied, and though he disapproved of Shirou's desire to learn his craft, he advised applying it in secret, where it could only benefit people and not attract confusion or suspicion. The knowledge he imparted to Shirou was very basic and incomplete, leading him down a dangerous path with little results. Furthermore, and perhaps inadvertently, Kiritsugu passed on his philosophy of wishing to be an Ally of Justice capable of saving anyone to Shirou. Five years prior to the fifth Holy Grail War, Kiritsugu suddenly died, leaving Shirou frustrated, depressed, and alone. He was subsequently watched over by Taiga Fujimura, Shirou's longtime neighbour and his English teacher, and his living expenses were managed by her grandfather, Raiga Fujimura. He later went to a middle school where he encountered Matou Shinji around October of his second year when he had to remake the signboard of the culture festival according to the design of third year students in a single evening. Shinji, who oversaw that throughout the evening, said “Hmm… you’re an idiot but actually does a pretty good job.” and started to laugh. After starting in Homurahara School, he met Issei Ryuudou and became known as someone who would readily do anything to help others, such as fixing the school equipment. He later joined the Archery Club, which led to an estranged relationship with Shinji. He missed the target only once during the period that he was enrolled, but even then he said that he saw that “it will miss” before even shooting it. He withdrew during the summer of his first year due to a bone fracture in his right shoulder he received during his part-time job, which left a burn mark over the skin. The wound itself was nothing major, but Shinji pointed out that it was unsightly for someone with a burn mark to do a formal shooting, so he left the club as it was also a period when he was busy with his part-time job. Their relationship eventually stabilized, but some tension still remained, especially in regard to Shinji's abuse of Sakura Matou. Shirou also got closer to Sakura as she started to visit his household frequently during the period while he was injured in order to help him cook and clean up the house. Even after he was healed, she continued to come as a member of his surrogate family. Personality Due to the trauma he suffered during the great fire, Shirou has a constant emptiness in his personality and suffers from tremendous survivor's guilt. He feels that, as the only survivor, it is unfair to the deceased to prioritize his own needs before those of others. He has a distorted sense of values where he only finds self-worth from helping people without any compensation, feeling that the very act “helping people” is its own reward. When it comes down to receiving an injury or even giving up his life to help someone, he will do it without a second thought. The people who see this side of him are often very worried and attempt to correct his behavior, though they are unable to change his opinions. Kiritsugu often talked about how he used strive to protect the innocent from the world's many perils, even at the cost of his own humanity, and how he was saddened by the reality that whenever he was able to spare one life, another person was fated to die. Although Kiritsugu was tormented by his inability to save everyone, Shirou always admired his efforts. Right before Kiritsugu's death, Shirou pledged to be an "Hero of justice" (正義の味方, Seigi no Mikata?) in Kiritsugu's place and strive to protect everyone at the cost of his own life. Everything that he is thus far is the result of that very pledge. He has made it his dream to become a "Hero of justice" who will save everyone regardless of what happens to his own life. Shirou takes his ideals to the limit during the Fate scenario, where he constantly attempts to protect Saber from harm and keep her from fighting other Servants, despite the fact that she is many times more powerful than he and that even his odds of mere survival, not winning, are hopelessly low against those he personally fights. This is because he cannot stand the idea of someone else being harmed for his sake. He never gives up his ideals during the route and injures himself numerous times to uphold it. During the Unlimited Blade Works route, Shirou, through constant arguing with Archer, begins to see the hypocrisy in his ideals. Though he refuses to give them up entirely, he works his way towards a middle ground where he will strive towards fulfilling ideals, despite knowing they are impossible to achieve. He faces his largest dilemma during Heaven's Feel, where he is forced to choose between maintaining his ideals and protecting the life of Sakura. He eventually forsakes them, with the exception of the "Superhero" ending, where he becomes as resolute as Kiritsugu in his prime, allowing Sakura to be executed for the greater good. He strives only to protect Sakura, though he is presented with conflict a number of times. Shirou is extremely stubborn once he sets out to accomplish something, such as spending hours attempting to perform a high jump that is nearly impossible for him. This action, as watched by Rin and Sakura, is one of the initial factors that causes them both to develop feelings for Shirou. He will stubbornly defend his own viewpoints, no matter how wrong they may seem to others, even to the point of causing them great mental anguish. Though he does his best to help others, if he feels that a person brought about their own ruin, he will simply watch instead of helping. Nasu has stated that Shirou and Shiki Tohno would definitely get along badly. Abilities Shirou is a magus trained by Kiritsugu Emiya. Differing from a formal magus, Shirou can instead be called a Spellcaster who does not follow the normal ways of magi. As he was adopted into the Emiya family, he has no way of inheriting Kiritsugu's Magic Crest, and he lacks the innate talent produced through generations of magi striving to develop the best Magic Circuits. His training was informal, as Kiritsugu had no desire to teach him originally, and aside from sparse knowledge, Kiritsugu taught him nothing of magecraft. He has an Origin of "Sword" and Elemental Affinity of "Sword" as well due to having had Avalon inside him for many years. This leaves him unable to use magic of the five great elements with precision due to lacking any as an alignment, but it does allow for the manifestation of Unlimited Blade Works and the derivative skills in Reinforcement and Projection Magecraft. Despite any more training, even when following Rin to the Mage's Association, he will never leave the level of a magus apprentice. Should Rin be given a ranking ranging from seventy to one hundred as a magus, Shirou would only rank as a ten. Ranked within the classification as a specialist spellcaster, he would be received as someone on par with Kiritsugu’s evaluation as a “Magus Killer” with a rank of forty. Magecraft He is an unorthodox magus who makes use of a very specialized version of Projection magecraft. Shirou is initially completely inept as a magus, only able to use Reinforcement and Projection Magecraft with a low level of success. Reinforcement allows him to analyze the structural composition of an object, and increase its effectiveness, such as making it more durable or its shape more practical, or return it to its original state. He can also use it to improve upon the physical capabilities of his own body, such as his eyesight, allowing him to see as far as four kilometers away. Shirou is also very skilled in Structural Grasp Magecraft, which allows him to understand the structure and design of objects as if he were viewing a blueprint. Projection, while a high level skill, is generally considered useless compared to Reinforcement due to the higher prana cost, and anything that Shirou initially projects is useless and hollow. Though the objects merely imitate the shape, there are only a few who can identify them as fakes in a first glance. Any practitioner that analyzes composition wouldn't be able to see through them, and even one that works through spiritual mediums would only notice a sense of incongruence. Since only objects with history ever go into the Department of Spiritual Invocation of Clock Tower, there is a low probability of them being discovered. Shirou's structural analysis isn't a type of Mystic Eyes. Shirou is later capable of using Tracing, a higher level version of Projection that completely copies everything regarding the creation and existence of the object. During the Fate scenario, he slowly learns of it on his own by training with Rin and following Archer's advice: "If you can't defeat it, then imagine what can", while in the Unlimited Blade Works scenario, he learns of it through extensive contact with Archer. He is only effectively able to reproduce swords, other weapons, and armor, but this specialty allows him to faithfully reproduce even legendary weapons. He is capable of reproducing any sword that he has seen, though Noble Phantasms are always one rank below their original strength and armor costs three times the amount of prana, and he is capable of employing its entire history, allowing him to wield any weapon with the same proficiency of its original owner. He has to see the weapons as how their form as final product actually are with his own eyes to reproduce them, as even the blueprint of Zelretch is not enough to reproduce it, but by seeing it and Caliburn through shared memories of Justeaze Lizrich von Einzbern and Saber, he becomes able to fully trace them afterward. If the weapon is not made of materials that exist in the world, such as Ea, he cannot analyze or reproduce it, though he can tell its basic nature. He is also quite capable of creating his own original kinds of weapons, should he put his mind to it. It is later identified that these abilities and Shirou's affinity with swords are concepts of Shirou's Reality Marble, Unlimited Blade Works. Rather than simply creating his projections in the real world, he actually reproduces them within the Reality Marble, as if he were loading a gun, and then projects them into the real world as if he were firing it. This allows him to prepare dozens of swords at a time for later use. Shirou is unable to properly deploy or maintain Unlimited Blade Works due to a shortage of prana, but with a proper contract with a magus with a suitable level of prana, such as Rin, he is capable of using it. If he were to learn about it normally, unlike the situation in Unlimited Blade Works where he learns of it firsthand from Archer, it would take ten years of training to set the foundations for the ability and another ten years to reach to the point of being able to use it. While actually using Unlimited Blade Works, the cost for creating the weapons is greatly diminished and the speed at which they can be created is also increased, allowing him to easily overwhelm Gilgamesh and his Gate of Babylon. If Shirou were to fight Shiki Tohno, there would be a high probability of a mutual defeat where Shirou would have his projected Noble Phantasms one-sidedly killed, while Shiki would overuse his Mystic Eyes of Death Perception to the point were he would overload and self-destruct after the battle. Circumstances would change if Shirou were capable of an Excalibur-like prana discharge. During a fight with Bazett Fraga McRemitz, a professional that specializes in anti-magus combat, he would likely be overwhelmed by her techniques, experience, and tactics, and he would also constantly have the disadvantage that using any of his high level techniques would leave him susceptible to Fragarach's instant kill ability. Knowledge Shirou's basic training in Magecraft was extremely lacking, so he was left with the idea that he needs to create a new Magic Circuit with each use of Magecraft. He goes through extremely dangerous training, which he describes as the feeling of inserting a hot iron rod into his spine, where he constantly faces the risk of death in order to develop a new Circuit. Though his body has twenty-seven natural Magic Circuits, they had been abandoned for his nerves, which he made into makeshift Magic Circuits due to his wrong method of training. Once his real Circuits are awakened, he goes through extreme pain and suffering as his nervous system gets used to the new intake of energy. His newly opened Magic Circuits can barely handle ten units of prana each. Shirou has Avalon implanted within his body, which saved his life during the great fire. This gives him an extremely potent regenerative ability while Saber is summoned due to Excalibur, though it does seem to sustain him even without it as he was able to temporarily survive a fatal blow dealt by Lancer. This allows him to survive numerous fatal wounds though it works against him in bad endings where he is able to be tortured and mutilated without succumbing to his injuries for a long duration of time. Unlimited Blade Works also seems to protect Shirou by creating blades within his body to reinforce it. He is able to survive a blow to the chest from Rider's dagger, which is repelled as if it is hitting metal, a kick that would have gouged his stomach only knocks him away, and he manages to keep from having his entire body destroyed from an attack by Gilgamesh. The ability seems to go out of control during a bad ending where numerous swords sprout from his dying body, and while his body is fully breaking down in the Heaven's Feel scenario, they are constantly being created and protruding from his skin. He practices basic swordfighting with Saber, though it amounts to little in actual offensive capabilities. While she teaches him, he cannot use her fighting style as a model. He cannot see exactly how she is attacking and their different physiques makes her impossible to copy. Gallery Category:Fate Characters Category:PC Debut Category:All Characters